To expand on this - I’m interested in thinking about times that a cause we support won, not only because maybe it feels good to see positive stories instead of all negative, but also because specific examples might help illustrate why it won, and reveal strategies we can use in the future.
Our HOA amended the rules to keep predatory landlords out of the neighborhood. Like most people, I don’t like HOAs. But, I really hate predatory landlords. The HOA was having difficulty getting the necessary votes. So I got off my lazy ass and went door to door for weeks until we got all the votes we needed. I had some help, but I got about 80% of what we needed on my own. It was a lot of work, but it was worth it. Now when houses sell in the neighborhood, families buy them instead of corporations.
That’s great! Seems like a good example of a minor change for that moment but with a potentially huge impact over time. How did the amended rule first come up as a possible change? About how many votes were needed to get it passed?
The HOA board was concerned about all the rentals that were quickly popping up over the past few years. They hired a lawyer to write the proposed ammendment and the language of the ballot. This all happened prior to my involvement. I personally drummed up about 70 votes. It’s hard to get people to answer their doors these days. People assume you’re trying to sell them something.
Probably a real stupid one.
The CEO plays golf with a bunch of dept leads. I’m one of the few dept leads who works remotely, and I don’t play golf. So I’m frequently not on his radar (which includes things like budget and promotions too).
He had a “brilliant” idea to make a internal project that should have gone to my department. We are literally the subject matter experts. But he gave it to another department. The dept lead tried to play both sides. He wanted the project because it’ll earn him brownie points with the CEO. But he tried to appease my dept by saying it’s a experiment.
I didn’t care. I was a bit annoyed the CEO ignored us. But my dept was in no position to take more work.
Well, by taking the project on, their department was under a lot of scrutiny. The internal tool touched everybody. They don’t have UX experience. They don’t know how to work collaboratively. They over engineered the hell of out it. You can’t make changes without being a senior developer (which means even juniors can’t contribute wtf) And worse, the CEO got pissed off that this expensive internal tool barely works. That dept lead went from “Oh we got this” to now fuming over the status of the project.
Finally, a C-level person demanded the other dept hand it over to my dept.
We took the project and rebuilt it in our technology. It took them three months, and we had it fully working in a week. Even better, my dept builds tools for non-technicals. So it was coded in a way where new features can be added by anybody, and managed by a non-engineer. My team still didn’t get credit/attention from the CEO. But whatever.
Sounds like your work speaks for you. If you could play golf with the CEO, would you? (I’ve played one round ever)
deleted by creator
We won a 6 dollar per hour kicker towards our healthcare, which if you declined the company healthcare that money ended up in your pocket so you can buy healthcare elsewhere.
Left that job for other reasons but we raised everyone salaries by about 30% in that time too. Huge wins for the workforce.
That’s awesome. What do you think was the deciding factor in getting those concessions?
First and foremost: unionization.
Second: picking the right people for your negotiation committee. We spent nearly 8 months preparing to sit down with the company, and the first meeting was a complete wash. Second meeting we talked them into it with a rational appeal regarding the reality of insurance costs plus the fact that a sick workforce cannot work.
As far as wages: make them fight you for everything they want. Itemize every part of your job. Make lanes and stay in them. When your union goes to negotiate, the union has the upper hand. You inform them what you will do, not what you desire.
My only-moderately-winning example - we got our state senator to co-sponsor a bill.
I volunteered with a group fighting gerrymandering in our state. Our local working group’s senator, a democrat, would not co-sponsor. We were trying to get so many legislators on board that leadership was compelled to move the bill out of committee. First we tried meeting with the senator. We got one of their staff instead, who promised the senator would look into it. A few weeks passed and nothing happened. Then on facebook their account made a post talking about their support of democratic reforms and specifically mentioned gerrymandering. So our local volunteers piled on asking why they hadn’t co-sponsored (which didn’t go anywhere) but that did give us the impression we were being put off. So we started a campaign where we went door to door in the senator’s district and got constituents to sign a letter asking the senator to co-sponsor. This was over a few weeks, and we knew word would have reached them because at least one of the people we met door to door had a personal connection to the senator. We had about 50 letters and hadn’t even delivered them yet when the senator co-sponsored the bill.
Mine didn’t really have “bad guys” but I was driving to lunch and someone’s car stalled out in the middle on an intersection. I pulled into a parking lot and got out to help push. In probably a minute or so I had 3 other strangers all helping me push this other stranger’s car.
When we finished one of them asked me my car was going to be OK and I told them it wasn’t my car, then we both laughed and the owner said they’d be fine. We all dispersed after that. I just thought it was pretty cool how a bunch of random strangers saw someone who needed help and everyone pitched in on their own accord.
Kinda reaffirmed my faith in humanity I guess.
I had the same experience before, it’s great. Stalled car is a good occasion to help not only because you get to see people band together, but you’ve usually accomplished the objective in a couple minutes! Good dopamine return on time invested.
Totally, just took a few minutes and it felt pretty nice to help someone out.
The crooked board of directors of our company hired a narcissist and small time corporate raider to become the CEO of our company. He did millions of dollars of damage to our company in three short years, but we finally ousted him and good people are back in charge.
The crooked board of directors of our company hired a narcissist and small time corporate raider to become the CEO of our company. He did millions of dollars of damage to our company in three short years, but we finally ousted him and good people are back in charge.
